Google Maps isn’t really the international arbiter on border disputes — but it’s pretty powerful, as two recent incidents show.

Associated Press

This rocky outcropping has been claimed by both Spain and Morocco.

For the second time this month, the mapping service has been caught up in a fight over territory. Google said this week it mistakenly attributed a disputed islet first to Morocco and then to Spain, the Associated Press first reported. In fact, the status of the rocky outcropping, which is inhabited by goats, is officially considered “under review.”

A Google spokeswoman told Digits the company understands that the islet near the North African coast is contested. “We always keep a close eye on disputed matters and make every effort to update our maps accordingly when things change,” the spokeswoman said in an email.

Last week, the Costa Rican newspaper La Nacion reported that Nicaraguan officials said they used the border shown on Google Maps when deciding to enter land that also is claimed by Costa Rica. The deputy foreign minister of Costa Rica had asked Google to change its map, and Nicaragua has said it wants no changes. The search giant said it’s investigating the issue, which the Organization of American States has taken up.

Such disagreements are a problem for the folks at Google Maps, who put up an official blog post this summer describing the process of making the depiction of boundaries more accurate.

Sometimes, this involves getting higher-resolution images of border areas so the maps can be better aligned with geographic features like mountain ranges. Other times, Google must get information from international bodies and change its symbols to show that a boundary is disputed. In July, Google rolled out changes that it said improved borders for more than 60 countries and regions.